The top 5 awesomest boxing injuries of the last decade...

Boxing has arguably the the most strict health and safety regualtions of any professional sport. Extensive physicals and medical examinations are done on each fighter before and after each fight. Ringside physicians are assigned by every commission to monitor both fighters between rounds and determine their ability to continue. Referees are highly trained to know when a fighter is taking too much punishment and to step in and stop it. An ambulance is always present at each fight and ready to transport the fighter(s) to the hospital in a timely manner in the event of a serious injury. Yet, some people still complain the sport is too violent and barbaric and poses health risks to all involved. Generally, these people are referred to as "women". And every time boxing is on the verge of finally convincing these broads that it's a safe and closely monitored sport, someone leaves the ring looking like they got their head caught in a bear trap and the whole argument starts all over again. The following are the top five examples from the past decade of why mothers prefer that their sons become aerobic instructors instead of boxers.

5. Edwin Valero TKO 9 Antonio Demarco

Upon hearing the news of Valero's death earlier this year, you wouldn't be blamed for thinking it was this cut that killed him. It's very rare that someone gets cut so deep that you can see their thoughts. It's also very rare that someone gets cut this deep and goes on to not only win a fight but dominate it, as Valero did by stopping Demarco in the 9th round. Though it appears to be an axe wound, the cut was actually caused by Demarco's elbow in the second round. The amount of red liquid dripping from Valero's face made it appear as if he was sitting front row at a Gallagher show. Apparently Valero was not at all fazed by the sight of blood as evidenced by the amount of it that likely came shooting out of his wife's neck after he stabbed a knife into it three times on the morning of April 18th, 2010. Though Edwin Valero compiled an eye popping record of 27-0 (27 ko's) inside the ring, he put together a less impressive record of 0-1 versus his sweatpants, which he used to hang himself in his prison cell just hours after confessing to his wife's murder.

4. Evander Holyfield Tech. W8 Hasim Rahman

In the last century or so, modern medicine has turned our world from a primitive, hostile breeding ground for disease, famine and death into a safe, sterile and fertile world where people don't have to be afraid of each other's boogers any more. The men and women who have helped advance our knowledge of health and medicine have been amongst the brightest the human race has to offer and without whom our lives would undoubtedly be shorter and of diminished quality. That being said, it's gonna take a long time before anyone can properly identify what the fuck that thing that formed on Hasim Rahman's head was on the night of June 1st 2002. Some specualted that Rahman was wearing a miner's cap on the inside of his skull while others inquired as to how someone could fight with a snow globe stapled to their forehead. One thing everyone seems to agree upon though is that nobody wants to be around when that thing finally hatches.

3. Rafael Marquez TKO 3 Israel Vazquez

In 2007 and 2008 Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez engaged in a sensationally brutal three fight trilogy that some describe as the best in boxing history. Marquez took the first fight after a broken nose caused Vazquez to retire on his stool after six rounds. Vazquez however took the next two insanely violent encounters and in the process almost lost an eye. After taking over a year off from the sport, presumably to have an extra layer of skin grafted to those things they call their face, the two fighters met for a fourth time less than a week ago. Vazquez, who now begins bleeding from his face on the drive to the arena, was cut almost immediately. And as if his eye was trying to send a message to his head that it no longer wanted to be punched in the retina anymore, it decided to drip every ounce of blood from his forehead directly into his cornea, effectively rendering him blind until Marquez stopped him midway through the 3rd round. Due to the size of the cut, doctors were forced to perform an experimental procedure in which they inserted a needle into one side of the wound and FedEx'd it to the other side and waited for it to return days later. This was repeated numerous times until doctors were finally able to identify Vazquez's face as that of a human being.

2. Lennox Lewis TKO 6 Vitali Klitschko

As if we already didn't have enough proof that Russia was creating and harboring cyborgs, along come the Klitschko brothers, Wladimir and Vitali. While Waldimir was considered the more talented of the two, it was Vitali who earned a place in the hearts of boxing fans by submitting his entire face to a scientific experiment in which doctors aimed to learn how many times it could be punched by Lennox Lewis before falling off completely. Turns out, the answer to that question is "a lot". To be fair, the hell that broke loose under Vitali's eye didn't accurately reflect how well he did in the fight. He was up on all three scorecards at the time of the stoppage and vehemently protested with the referee not to stop it, at which point the ref held up a mirror to Vitali's face and said "There's nothing left for him to break on your head. In America, that means he wins."

1. Antonio Margarito TKO 10 Sebastian Lujan

When Antonio Margarito threatens to box your ears off, he fucking means it. Just ask Sebastian Lujan, who in 2005 became the first boxer in history to leave the ring with his ear in a wheelchair. Lujan held his own for the first half of the fight but as Margarito began to take over in the middle rounds, Lujan's ear decided to make a run for it. Some observers recall hearing the ear say "If you're not going to protect me, I'm just gonna leave. See you in the car." Some fighters careers are stunted and cut short due to a glass jaw. Imagine Lujan's surprise when he found out the hard way that he has a glass ear. In Lujan's defense, Margarito was caught before a fight with Shane Mosley in 2009 with plaster of paris in his hand wraps. We can only specualte as to whether Margarito's knuckles were cemented in his fight with Lujan but when you consider that the one ear that fell off in a prize ring in the 00's did so at the hands of the only guy to be suspended in the 00's for putting asphalt in his gloves, it's kind of hard to believe the playing field was level that night. Regardless, Lujan's career continued but he was never the same again. And thanks to Margarito, he could only hear the ring announcer declare him the loser through his right ear.